President Barack Obama on Wednesday delivers what the White House is billing as a major address on jobs and the economy — and Republicans are mocking as yet another “pivot” from a president struggling for traction.

Administration officials and Democrats close to the White House say they hope the speech will achieve three goals: reset the political conversation on a still-recovering economy, warn Republicans not to create a fresh crisis in the fall and help cement the president’s legacy as economic steward through turbulent and hyperpartisan times.

Whether he can accomplish any of this at Knox College in Illinois or in follow-up addresses planned through September depends on the substance of a speech Obama has previewed as “pretty good.” Here are POLITICO’s five things to watch.

How hard will he go after Republicans on the debt ceiling and government funding?

One argument for why Obama is doing this speech now: He’s laying down an early marker as the sane voice ahead of potentially bruising fights over bills to fund the government after Oct. 1 and to raise the debt ceiling sometime in November or later.

White House officials have made clear Obama won’t go deep in the weeds on these issues by using Washington words like “sequester” or issuing sharp ultimatums to the GOP.

Every time Obama takes to the road to chide Republicans, particularly in the House, he winds up only further stoking their antipathy toward him, making final deals harder. House Speaker John Boehner this week said Obama should not “give another speech” but instead sit down and talk.

But the president wants to make it clear to the broader public ahead of the fall fights that the ground has shifted — and 2013 is not 2009.

Annual deficits are half what they were four years ago and are still shrinking after spending cuts and tax hikes. So expect the president to argue that we should not shut down the government or threaten default just to make more big cuts. That’s what many economists are looking for, rather than any new proposals to boost growth.

“I don’t think any policies he might talk about would make any big difference,” said Nigel Gault, co-chief economist at the Parthenon Group. “I think this is much more part of setting up the debate over fiscal policy in the fall and making sure we don’t have another crisis.”

How bullish will he be on the economy?

Any speech the president gives about this frustrating economy runs the risk of sounding like cheerleading a recovery that most average Americans are barely feeling.

Expect the president to strike a positive tone about the rebound in house prices and the stock market while acknowledging that for the middle class, real wages continue to stagnate and good jobs remain hard to find.

This administration has been plagued before by seeming to declare victory on the economy too soon, notably with then-Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s 2010 New York Times op-ed headlined “Welcome to the Recovery.” That year also saw the White House launch a “Recovery Summer” tour that was quickly followed by a return to anemic growth. In the summer of 2011, a debt ceiling disaster led to the first-ever credit rating downgrade in the history of the United States.

Obama will also be speaking as economic data continue to come in decidedly mixed and market analysts are predicting second-quarter growth of less than 1 percent. So how will Obama manage to take some credit for an economy that is at least growing and adding a couple hundred thousands jobs a month without alienating those still struggling?

“The American people have been through a very traumatic experience,” said Bill Galston, a Brookings Institution scholar. “They are in a very defensive crouch, and it will be very hard for the president to talk them out of it.”

Republicans argue that all Obama can do is talk and that his speech will amount to nothing. “I say to the president, ‘You know what? Actions speak louder than words,’” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said this week.

How will he make the case for his economic legacy?

Another rationale behind the speech is to lay down a stronger narrative arc for the president’s stewardship of the economy, an area in which voters have often questioned his abilities.

The basic administration case is that Obama inherited an economy on the verge of collapse, followed through on rescues of the banking and auto industries and passed a stimulus package that helped avert an even deeper and longer recession. Administration officials and Democrats close to the White House say the current moment — with the economy at least poised for stronger growth and risks both domestically and abroad receding — represents a good opportunity to remind voters of the president’s record and his vision to further improve the lives of average Americans.

“The president wears many hats and this week he’s a painter, building a frame for his art,” said Paul Equale, a Democratic consultant. “Obama and his senior aides believe that they have a great story to tell, and need to reclaim the agenda.”

The risk is that Obama tries to lay down a coherent story on his economic record but winds up looking foolish if the next round of numbers on jobs and economic growth comes in soft and Washington blows up again in partisan acrimony this fall.

Will he offer specific new proposals?

Messages out of the White House on this have been mixed.

Senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer, in a blast email on Sunday that started the PR blitz for the speech, suggested there would be a mix of previous proposals on job creation along with some fresh ideas. But White House press secretary Jay Carney said on Monday that the speech would “provide a vision of where we have been, where we are and where we need to go,” rather than offering any new real policy ideas.

The equivocating on this topic reflects the basic reality that there is little Obama can accomplish on the policy front that is likely to boost the economy significantly. No major legislative proposals on job training or infrastructure spending will clear the GOP-controlled House. The best Obama can hope for there is to resist major new cuts.

And the biggest threat to the economy — the prospect of rising interest rates choking off the housing market and business investment — will largely turn on the actions of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and other central bank policymakers.

So to many observers, the series of speeches beginning Wednesday represents a political effort to convince voters that Obama is focused on bread-and-butter issues at a time when his poll numbers are sagging.

“The American people have priorities, and it’s clear the economy and jobs are at the top of every list,” Galston said. “And what Washington has been talking about in the past six months diverges very sharply from what the people think they ought to be talking about.”

Galston said the speech is also pitched at 2014. “The hope is that taking back the House is not out of reach and that a sustained focus on economic issues gets Democrats over the top and Obama can finish with two more years of legislative creativity,” he said.

What role will immigration and health care play in the speech?

One big question about the current jobs and economy tour is why Obama is doing it rather than continuing to push hard on the top current agenda items: implementing health care reform and getting a comprehensive immigration reform bill through the House.

Obama is likely to use the speech as a way to weave both of those issues into the broader narrative of helping boost middle-class living standards while also creating jobs. Look for him to argue that despite some headaches, health care reform will eventually make coverage cheaper for consumers while immigration reform will help business add much-needed workers both at the low and high end of the wage scale.

He’s also likely to argue that providing a path to citizenship for 11 million currently undocumented residents will add to tax coffers and help with deficit reduction, a position backed up by the Congressional Budget Office assessment of the Senate bill. Democrats close to the White House say it’s fairly easy for Republicans to take shots at health care and immigration reform efforts in isolation, but it’s harder when they are part of a more coherent and unified vision of the economy.

“The crucial question for the president’s speech is does what he say match up with what people are feeling in their own lives and in their own businesses,” Gault said. “Maybe if people are seeing things gradually improve and the president comes along and reinforces that and offers some further ideas, it could have a positive effect.”